Poor, Pitiful Me, Mavis

Care to join me in a little Pity Party? Let's just get it all out there. I'm sitting all alone and serene in my Palace, having tossed two guests a few hours ago: Beau, for refusing to keep his damn long legs out of my already unruly, snarly yarn; and DH (which does NOT stand for "Darling Husband" today -- use your imagination) for making an uncalled for nasty comment that completely ticked me off.

Remember? Today was going to be about me ... knitting ... a lot? It hasn't quite worked out that way. I've been pulled a bunch of different ways today -- all away from "me ... knitting." In no particular order:

1. Drop-by visit from local politician
2. Just today hearing about problem and arranging medical appointment for Mom
3. Getting completely beat over the head (via telephone) from lousy area merchant who somehow thinks I had evil, dastardly intentions when our committee unknowingly ticked her off.
4. Beau tangling in yarn (annoying enough to mention again)
5. Damn yarn tangling which I had to keep untangling
6. D... H... finding #4 very funny, but making no move to help out
7. D... H... making nasty comment (WAY annoying enough to mention again)

Really, not all of these things do I feel "wronged" over, even if they switched my track. Surely #2 was something I needed and wanted to do. And #1 was really a nice visit.

#3, however, sent me over the edge. I'm not just talking for me, but for all of the volunteers around here who have spent so much time on this revitalization project which is geared chiefly to the merchants. Care to guess how many of the faithful volunteers run businesses in the area? Um, ZERO, would be a safe bet.

Yet, the vast majority of the merchants continue to moan and groan about how bad business is and how little the local government does for them. These same folks continue to operate at about 16 hours PER WEEK (for most of them anyway), close whenever they feel the urge, proudly display an "OPEN" sign at ALL TIMES, and never lift a finger to help with any of the revitalization projects geared to help their business, and thereafter, the general community.

Okay, so I went a little too far on #3.

NEVERTHELESS, with all of this stuff crashing in around me, I was able to nearly finish the first-side of the Cable-Eight top. I'd add in a picture here, but DH took my camera down to his lair and I'm not yet ready to leave the Palace to retrieve it.

I'm taking a little break from knitting and may pick back up on the cardigan later. Sometimes it helps to step away from a project for a bit -- particularly one in 100% cotton. I find that I work hard to keep even tension with cotton as it has no "bounce" -- even more of a problem with these big ole 11 needles.

Okay, the Party is officially over.